Advocating joined up services

Because people who access our employment programmes often experience multiple constraints to employment, we advocate the need for local services – such as housing, employment, childcare, debt, training, health, and guidance services – to work together to address the needs of an individual as a whole rather than the individual having to seek separate services.

Our approach is to empower each individual. We do this by understanding their needs and working in partnership with all of the services they require to stabilise their situation and we do this concurrently with job search activity. Our aim is to ensure that local services are accessible and easy to navigate, as well as to share our knowledge with other providers to avoid duplication and reduce complexity. This ensures the individual experiences a streamlined service and also provides increased value for the money for governments and local authorities that fund many of these services.

We have used our knowledge and experience to argue for longer employment services contracts with larger numbers of clients knowing that this facilitates the establishment of worthwhile and effective local partnerships. We would like to see this move a step further whereby services are truly joined up with multi-disciplined providers delivering holistic services focused on the individual – whereby the funding dollar follows an individual, rather than an institution, throughout their schooling, work life, health needs, and aging.

“We do this by understanding their needs and working in partnership with all of the services they require to stabilise their situation and we do this concurrently with job search activity.”